The Great Buddha+

With black and white literary films, in fact, the story is quite ordinary, but the reaction of the bottom life is very ordinary and real. Actors also grasp the characteristics of the characters, so every character seems to live around.

Watching this in the UK probably meant most of the subtle Taiwanese life references went over my head and whilst there is humour in the film, I didn't laugh once. The story centres around 2 struggling lowlife misfits where one is a night security guard at a Buddha statue factory and the other a refuse recycling collector. It's a sort of bizarre snapshot of a series of events. There's a theme of vulnerability and exploitation, references to faith and local culture. It's mostly filmed in Black and White and is unusual in having the director intervening occasionally with a narration. The film manages to hold a certain mood, it's filmed in an interesting way and is as they say 'different'.

My rating: 6/10 and only that high for it's absurdity. Recommended for the art-house crew. Beware there isn't much of a cohesive story to this and the trailer is made up from some very carefully selected scenes.

This movie depicts two friend watching his boss dash camera recording only to find out a dark secret.. but seriously it is a very slow movie... the conversation is very interesting and funny... but it really took too long to send out the message.

Realism, sensibility, erotism, love, humor, irony and mistery in a balanced way. This movie is a great inspiration for who wants to know how to tell a story with a good narrative, simplicity and interesting characters. A real good surprise in black and white from Taiwan.

You never know what secret is hiding under someone's skin. The black humor of the place is interesting to present the local style, but also the bleak reality of sarcasm. Crime and punishment are casually spread out in many aspects, and events are comprehensively described in terms of trivial details. It's ironic, and at the same time appropriately sentimental.